AI Engineer

Sure Exec Search; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Sure Exec Search is seeking an AI Engineer who loves building great software for people who actually want to use it. You’ll work across the full product and engineering lifecycle, from understanding the problem with users to deploying reliable AI-powered applications in production.

The role focuses on building useful, well-engineered applications using LLMs, RAG, agents, and tooling, with a strong emphasis on performance, security, and maintainability.

Qualifications

• Strong experience building production-quality software applications.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs and Generative AI.
• Knowledge of RAG, embeddings, agents, tool calling and prompt engineering.
• Experience taking ideas through to production.

Responsibilities

• Build AI-powered internal applications from concept to production.
• Work with users and stakeholders to translate goals into practical tech.
• Design reliable, user-friendly applications that simplify complex tasks.
• Develop backend services, APIs and AI workflows using Python.
• Work with LLMs and technologies such as RAG, agents, tool calling and retrieval to enable useful AI capabilities.
• Prototype quickly, test ideas with users and iterate based on feedback.
• Consider production-readiness: performance, security, reliability, monitoring and testing.
• Integrate AI applications with existing business systems and APIs.
• Collaborate with wider engineering teams to deploy and support in production.
• Keep up with AI developments to identify genuine improvements.

Skills

Production-grade software

LLMs and Generative AI

APIs

Cloud platforms

Tools

Python

Tool calling

RAG systems

Job description

Please note: sponsorship is not available

We're looking for an AI Engineer who loves building great software for people actually want to use it.

Our client is investing heavily in AI, but this isn't a research role and it's not about building AI for the sake of it. The team is focused on creating high-quality internal applications that genuinely improve how people work - taking ideas from an early concept through to something people use every day.

You'll work across the full product and engineering lifecycle: understanding the problem, working with users, designing the solution, building it, testing it, launching it and then continuously improving it.

AI is at the heart of what the team is doing, with applications incorporating LLMs, RAG, agents, automation and other emerging technologies. But the focus is ultimately on building useful, reliable and well-engineered applications, rather than simply experimenting with models.

What you'll be doing

You'll be involved in a mixture of new product development and improving existing applications.

• Build and develop AI-powered internal applications from concept through to production.
• Work closely with users and stakeholders to understand what they're actually trying to achieve and turn that into practical technology.
• Design intuitive, reliable applications that make complex tasks simpler and improve the user experience.
• Develop backend services, APIs and AI workflows using Python and modern software engineering practices.
• Work with LLMs and technologies such as RAG, agents, tool calling and retrieval to create genuinely useful AI capabilities.
• Prototype quickly, test ideas with users and iterate based on feedback.
• Think about the things that make an application production-ready — performance, security, reliability, monitoring, testing and maintainability.
• Integrate AI applications with existing business systems, data and APIs.
• Work with the wider engineering and technology teams to deploy and support applications in production.
• Keep up with developments in AI and identify where new technology can genuinely improve an existing product or create something new.

What we're looking for

We're particularly interested in engineers who enjoy building things.

You don't need to be an AI researcher. You do need to be a strong software engineer who understands how modern AI can be used to build better applications.

You'll ideally have:

• Strong commercial experience building production-quality software applications.
• Practical experience building applications using LLMs and Generative AI.
• A good understanding of concepts such as RAG, embeddings, agents, tool calling and prompt engineering.
• Experience taking ideas or prototypes through to production.
• Good understanding of APIs, databases, cloud platforms and modern software engineering principles.
• An interest in product and user experience, not just the underlying technology.
• The ability to take a loosely defined problem and work out what a good technical solution looks like.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work directly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• A genuine curiosity about AI and a desire to keep learning as the technology develops.